


When I

by llcflms



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: F/M, i'm sorry ayato-kun i love you a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 19:56:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20364217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/llcflms/pseuds/llcflms
Summary: Hinami gets an unexpected visitor.





	When I

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this because i was bored and i miss ayahina. the title is based on my favorite song by beast called when i so please listen to it :')

When she hears the loud _thump_ against her front door, Hinami doesn’t think much about it. Someone must have dropped something, or some kid must have been playing outside. She pays no mind to the sound. It’s only when she smells the heavy metallic tinge in the air that she responds. This isn’t just blood— it’s a familiar smell. She knows whose blood it is.

It’s seven in the evening and the sun has only just started to set. It’s normal for Hinami to be at home right now. Teaching is a day job. She has most of the night to herself. But not everyone is like her. The peacekeepers in the United Front and the TSC, for instance, have to work whenever they are needed to. When Hinami smells Ayato’s blood outside of her apartment, she knows something very wrong is happening. He should only just have started work today.

She’s at the door in a matter of a heartbeat. For that split second, she moves at the speed of an ukaku. She pulls the door open and Ayato falls forward, weakly managing to stop himself from falling completely with his hand. He’s lying in a pool of crimson, his clothes soaked and his skin stained in the same colour.

“Ayato-kun!” Hinami falls to her knees immediately, helping him up and leaning his trembling frame against hers. His breathing is so shallow, it’s almost as if his lungs are desperately fighting just for one more moment— perhaps, they are.

Ayato tries to sit up, pulling away from her, only to fall against her again. Hinami’s mind screams at her to do something, but at the same time, it stays a blank slate. What is she supposed to do when her beloved is bleeding himself out on her door? Does she call for help? Maybe an ambulance. Maybe calling Banjou would be better— no, that would be the best.

“Wait, I’ll call Banjou,” she says, trying to get up, only for him to pull her back down. Her knees knock against the floor again. Her white leggings and skirt are sticky, dyed dark red. Her favourite blouse is ruined as well— patches of red stain where he had rested himself on or had held onto.

“There’s no time,” he croaks out. Her stomach churns at the sounds of his voice. For a moment, she’s washed with relief that he’s well enough to talk, only for that brief moment of happiness to shatter from the realisation that he sounds far from okay. His voice is strained and raspy, like someone having just woken up with his throat clogged with sleep— except, it’s not sleep that’s clogging Ayato’s throat— it’s something else. The word dances in her mind, a horrifying capital ‘D’ flashing before her eyes. Tears sting at her ducts. No, that’s not happening. She won’t let it happen.

She’s fought so hard. She’s come so far. She had managed to make it here with everyone. She’s not losing someone again— she’s not losing _him_ out of all people.

“You need meat,” she whimpers. He looks up at her, eyes narrowed amidst the cuts and bruises on his face. He watches her through his bangs. Drenched and sticky, the strands of his hair hang forward in clumps, plastered against his face. She’s thankful his hair is dark. At the very least, she can’t tell just how bloody his head is.

“You need meat,” she repeats, her voice weaker this time. She has no idea where to get meat in the first place. The new manufactured meat that ghouls are being made to eat nowadays cures their hunger but doesn’t help much with healing, not like raw flesh does. She looks down at him, surprised for a moment at how calm he is, watching her with a slight amusement on his face.

“Where are you going to get meat, Hinami?” he laughs.

She recalls something Touka had mentioned once. She’s seen some ghouls do it before. She adjusts their positions and undoes the button on her blouse. Her fingers fumble against the tiny buttons. She doesn’t realise how much her hands are shaking. Her body can barely function right now. Even though she isn’t the one losing blood, her limbs tremble to no ends, her throat constricts and her head spins from the nausea surfacing in her stomach. When the top three buttons are undone, she pushes her sleeve off, exposing her right shoulder. Ayato doesn’t seem bothered, aside from the way his eyes soften when they land on her bare skin.

“I’m not going to bite you, Hinami. I’m going to need much more than that to heal,” he says frankly. The way he says her name sends shivers down her spine. He never says it that much. It almost feels like he’s making himself say it; like it might be the last time he gets to do it.

“I don’t care. You can take as much as you need,” she says quickly. The tears are falling already. Ayato laughs, shaking his head. He raises a weak hand to her face, swiping his thumb against the tear tracks on her cheeks one at a time. She feels the warmth of his touch, mostly from the blood he leaves behind, and all it does is create more tears.

“Human meat. If you have human meat—”

“Gonna kill someone for me now?” he chuckles. “Leave it, Hinami. You’ll get into trouble.”

“I don’t care,” she sobs. “If it’s to save you I don’t care.”

She’s such a hypocrite, she thinks. She remembers all the times Ayato had to work for her— all the times he had to take on additional burdens onto his exhausted shoulders— just because Hinami was so consumed with her morals and beliefs that killing is wrong and that she can never bring herself to do it. She wonders where those morals are right now. She wonders how she can’t even be bothered about them at this moment. She’s surprised, even, at how she’s silently hoping a human will suddenly show up before her right now so she can do that deed.

She had stopped Touka from killing the investigator the other time for revenge over her parents’ death. She realises now how difficult that decision must have been for Touka, yet how easy it is to make the choice for the sake of your loved ones. Like how Touka had killed to protect Hinami, Hinami realises she will kill if it’s to protect Ayato.

“Fucking idiot,” Ayato grumbles. He coughs, shaking his head as he stumbles to straighten himself out. He falls back against her right now. Hinami can feel his annoyance from the way he moves; he must hate feeling so weak. But there’s nothing that he can do, not when he’s not allowing her to do anything either.

“What happened—”

“I wanted to see you, Hinami,” he answers instead. “When I was lying there and bleeding the fuck out, all I could think was about how I wanted to see you.”

He pauses, breaking out into a coughing fit, blood spluttering out of his mouth. He heaves as he breathes. His breaths are tighter, like as if there’s a big hole in his lungs that is swallowing up all the oxygen he’s taking in, leaving him empty and grasping at nothing even when he’s fighting so hard to stay alive.

“Just like… when I was dragging the half-assed bastard out of Dragon. Or when we broke into Cochlea. Or when I tried to run back into the auction hall… I didn’t want to go, not without seeing you one more time. All I knew… was I just wanted to see Hina one more time,” he says. He coughs again and brings an arm up to his mouth, rubbing his sleeve against his lips. “Fuck… Fuck, not now… Fuck.”

“Ayato-kun, it will be okay,” Hinami says. She looks around her apartment. Her phone is just a short distance away. She can’t reach it with her arms, but with her rinkaku limb, she easily manages to pick it up and bring it over. She holds Ayato tightly against her with one hand as she tries her best to unlock her phone to call Banjou. It’s hard to use a smartphone with her hands being so wet and bloody. The screen refuses to respond. _No. No no no. Please_. She prays silently for help as she tries to work it. She’s right about to call Banjou when Ayato’s coughs again, his body lurching forward as he retches. Banjou fades to the back of her mind as he falls against her, limp and weak. Her phone falls to the floor, splattering into the pool beneath her. She’s holding him with two hands, hugging him as tight as she can while rubbing her back.

“No.” His voice sounds like a sob. She can’t see his face with him bent over like that, but from the way his body moves, she knows he’s crying. She’s never seen him cry before, not even at the worst of moments, not even when he was in Death’s grasp the last time. “Not now… Not now… I thought… we made it.”

_I thought we made it too, Ayato-kun_.

Their world hadn’t changed at all.

* * *

Her phone keeps ringing. She hasn’t met anyone since that day. She hasn’t talked to anyone. She hasn’t been to work. She hasn’t gone out. She doesn’t answer the door. She barely ate anything, surviving on whatever leftovers she has in her fridge. It isn’t too bad. She doesn’t have much of an appetite either, nor is she too fond of walking out of her room and into the kitchen. The kitchen is in the other end of the apartment, past the living room and past her front door, where _that_ had happened.

The door had been cleaned. Banjou and Tsukiyama had taken care of that as she sat aside, shakily watching them in horror. The blood was wiped off completely. The smell had long faded. The doorway no longer held any evidence of what had happened. It’s like all of it never happened. It feels too hopeful— one day he might burst in with the usual scowl he has on his face before throwing himself on his couch and acting as if he owns the apartment.

But she knows that is merely wishful thinking. Her clothes from that day are still bloody. She hadn’t come around to do her laundry yet. She hadn’t changed her phone case either. It’s still stained red after she had left it in his blood for hours before picking it up again.

She can’t change the fact that he’s gone. Banjou had filled her in on what he believes had happened. It’s just a normal mission. It wasn’t supposed to be dangerous. Someone of Ayato’s calibre and ability shouldn’t have run into any problem with it. The team had been small. When they ran into Shikorae, there was nothing they could do. They were overpowered. Of course, being the self-sacrificing idiot that he was, he had ordered his squad to retreat while he held off their former comrade. 

Had Ayato always been that weak? Hinami hadn’t seen him fight in ages. They aren’t partners anymore. She isn’t there to support him any more. Maybe she should have agreed to fight as well. Maybe she shouldn’t have chickened out when she was given the chance to do something else instead. Even if she hates fighting and killing, maybe she should have gone along with him. They’re partners; they’re stronger together.

_This is all my fault._

“Hinami,” Touka voice sounds out from the voicemail. “Hinami, the funeral is at 10. Please come. He’d want you here.”

Ghouls had always mourned their dead in silence. They had never been given the opportunity to commemorate their deceased with grandeur the way humans had. They never had the chance for final farewells. Not until now. But the thought of going there and seeing him again sickens her. She doesn’t want to see him one more time. She doesn’t want to see his pretty face all cleaned and made up. She doesn’t want that facade, not when she had witnessed the reality. He had not gone as peacefully and painlessly as his corpse might suggest in the funeral. In fact, it’s quite on the contrary. His body had been littered with wounds. He had been torn apart. He had bled himself to death. His final moments had been nothing but pain.

_He’d want you here. _How can the dead want anything? Going won’t change anything. 

She doesn’t want to attend the funeral. She doesn’t want to go on without him. All she wants to do is lie in bed, curled up in his coat— his favourite fur-lined one which he had given her back when he saved her in Cochlea and she had forgotten to return afterwards. It no longer smells as strongly of him as it used to, but in her life that is now completely void of his presence, nothing can smell better. She buries her face into the fabric and she doesn’t bother stopping the sobs that escape her lips and the tears that continue to fall. 

_I’m sorry, Ayato-kun._

_Come back, Ayato-kun._

_I miss you, Ayato-kun._

_Don’t leave me alone, Ayato-kun._

_I love you, Ayato-kun._

**Author's Note:**

> nghh ayatokun is my favorite character ever. please rest assured that i love him with all my heart and will never wish such a gruesome death for him. ayatokun can only die being surrounded by hinami, their kids, their grandkids, their pet bird, his pet rabbit and their 3 tanks of tropical fishes.


End file.
